These 20 years have felt like both a long time and a short time.

And as we recite the names of those we lost, my memory goes back to that terrible day.

When it felt like an evil specter had descended on our world.

But it was also a time when many people acted above and beyond the ordinary.

Welcome to Talking Feds.

A round table that brings together prominent figures from government, law and journalism for a dynamic discussion of the most important topics of the day.

I'm Harry Littman.

The 20th anniversary of September 11th finds the country looking back and in no mood for celebration.

There's instead a kind of grimness and fatigue.

In part brought on by the withdrawal from Afghanistan that marked in glorious fashion the end of a war that began to track down the perpetrators of the worst domestic terrorist attack in our history.

The sense of purpose and patriotism that united the country in the year after the attack seemed slowly to a given way to a greater mistrust in government and one another.

And there's not much else to cheer the country up this week.

The COVID present resurgence is deadly serious with new cases having increased sixfold over the summer and weekly fatalities now equipsing 10,000.

Meanwhile, the Texas statute that brazenly ignores Roe vs Wade continues to have real bites since the Supreme Court refused to enjoy it.

But the Department of Justice charged into the battle with a filing that figures at least to put the statute on hold until the courts can assess it.

But just behind that action is the prospect in the near future of the overruling of Roe v Wade by a new five person super conservative majority.

All these developments play out against and are aggravated by the miserable partisan divide that plagues our political and social lives and that some trace to 9-11 itself.

And to help piece together the past, present and future developments we have a terrific set of guests or I really should say duo of guests because congressman Roger Krishnamurti,

who was set to participate has just been called away on an emergency scheduling conflict.

So we move ahead with two superb commentators who will be more than enough, I think, to carry the day.

And they are David Ferenthold.

David writes for the Washington Post covering national politics since 2010. In 2017 he won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for his campaign coverage and his coverage of Trump's suspicious or even downright fraudulent exploits of his own charities.

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